Someone once said that one does not make war because he hates the one in front of him, but because he loves those he has behind him. And while I think that's true, I also know that when the war begins, hatred comes in, it does not matter if it is called in or not. Without asking permission, hatred enters.

In our case, fortunately we never allowed him to enter our heart and for that reason, it has not been difficult to take the step we took.

More than a year ago we decided, in Colombia, to leave war behind and try to move towards democracy, with its thousands of fragilities. It is a way of loving peace,coexistence, though imperfect, which is a thousand times preferable to any of the forms of war.

We Colombians decided to debate, understand, embrace, reject, and do it with energy, with vehemence and passion, but without violence.

So uncomfortable, so hard to understand, for those who feed on hatred, is what we decided.

This peace has cost us lives, but it has already begun and it will not stop if we remain attentive, awake and determined not to let hatred enter our hearts.

My heart is happy with this idea and although it almost killed me the other day, I know well that my heart is happy like that, I know because it made me feel that.

It expressed himself about it a few days ago, very clearly and with such intensity, that I ended up in a clinic.

Its message was clear, it told me that I have to take care of myself to continue fighting with love and for the love that comes from it.

That is a message also for those who live with hatred in the womb.

Long live Colombia!

Long live the peaceful struggle for the common good!

Long live the heart of peace that will keep beating!

Rodrigo Londoño - Timo

People’s Alternative Revolutionary Force

]]>delegation@farc-epeace.org (Timoleón Jiménez)Timoleón JiménezSun, 11 Mar 2018 10:36:47 +00002018 will be the year of change and transformation, Timochenkohttp://farc-epeace.org/blogs/timoleon-jimenez/item/2751-2018-will-be-the-year-of-change-and-transformation,-timochenko.html
http://farc-epeace.org/blogs/timoleon-jimenez/item/2751-2018-will-be-the-year-of-change-and-transformation,-timochenko.html

The Nobel Prize candidate in Economics, Albert Berry, says in his recent book "Advance and Failure in the Colombian Agriculture, XX and XXI Centuries" that by the year 1936 "the big landowners mounted a sophisticated campaign against the government that showed the hostility of the elite towards any intervention by the State in matters related to the land, stating that the Government was trying to destroy private property and warned about the threat of a revolution."

The problem was resolved in favor of the landowners and Colombia lost the opportunity to go on the path of inclusion, peace and progress.

On the contrary, the conditions for armed confrontation were generated. The Colombian countryside was covered in blood and death. The great popular leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated, like more than 300 thousand people. Almost 20% of the peasant population was displaced, losing their plots, farms and other possessions. Again defeated and banished, the peasants disperse through the national territory colonizing new lands and widening the agricultural border.

In Marquetalia, Riochiquito, El Pato, Guayabero and many other regions these peasants settled to produce the land: as their only help they have the experience, the permanent sacrifice, the solidarity between them and the deep conviction that from the State they can only expect repression and injustice. They could not collect many harvests as they thought, because the incendiaries (literally) speeches in the Congress of the Republic of the conservative leader Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, together with the new American policy of the "internal enemy", ignited the next war against the peasants. The young Alvaro spoke of "independent republics", of liberated zones, of the loss of sovereignty of the State, all these fallacies against a handful of displaced peasants cornered in the fold of a mountain.

The heroic resistance of 48 peasants produced the formidable guerrilla force of the FARC-EP that was deployed throughout the country for more than 50 years, putting the reactionary powers in Colombia in check.

Half a century after the bloody confrontation, the Government of Juan Manuel Santos and the guerrilla of the FARC-EP, together with the international community as guarantor, signed a Peace Agreement, which was received and welcomed with joy by the vast majority of the Colombian people.

At gunpoint, in Colombia we had learned the value of democracy, of social justice and the cost of economic backwardness. We learned and changed. Álvaro Gómez Hurtado himself died being another: critical of the institutionality, promoter of political pacts and convinced that "things can be otherwise" (1).

Unfortunately there are those who try to corrupt the thread of history and repeat obsolete positions that cost the country so much. The young Rodrigo Lara is today the Álvaro Gómez of the last century, the latter at least defended the political class to which he belonged, Lara is defending the intellectual responsible for the murder of his father.

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, the father, is a hero. Perhaps the last minister of justice who honored his position, for that reason they killed him, he did not let himself to be bought, he denounced Álvaro Uribe Vélez, owner of one of the aircraft found in Tranquilandia, the largest cocaine laboratory in history. As an altruistic man, when he was very young he shouted at the same Congress where his son today opposes the peace seats for the victims: “Democracy is not defended by running over Human Rights". We do not fear the son, because we have in the father the inspiration to fight tirelessly for the better country he dreamed of.

Convinced that the Agreement opens the difficult road of building a better nation, where we all fit, where thinking differently or fighting against the underworld is not a reason to die. We will dismantle, one by one, the obstacles to the implementation of peace reforms. With the strength of the conscience of millions of young people always ready to fight for their future, with the experience of millions of other workers who know how to achieve it, with the heroism of millions of peasants who resisted the war, with academics and intellectuals, poets, actresses, with the best of the Armed Forces and Police in the service of the Homeland and not of mafioso and corrupt landlords.

We know that no country in the world has been transformed from one day to the next. Even the creation of the world took God seven days and to be exact "seven periods." In no way can these be solar days be because those were created by God, says the legend, only until the fourth day. So we do not know for sure how long the Genesis had taken, nor whether there was against this forms of uribism, ordoñismo, paramilitarism that is the same but different, 526 years of submission to foreign interests and forces, although it is said that at the time of the creation "there was darkness".

We all have to do it again because as it is, it does not work. And that takes time, you have to awaken creativity and organization of society at all levels. You have to take advantage of the fact that today in Colombia the issues are debated everywhere, there is no corner of the country where the most serious problems of society are not debated: health, work, housing, corruption, education, culture.

Most Colombians reject the Congress, the old political parties, the media, justice, the businessmen. In other words, Colombians do not believe in the State or its institutions. That is the real crisis and at the same time the great opportunity for change.

The new People’s Party, as a revolutionary party must see clearly the historical moment of transformation in Colombia and in the world.

Our political project is the one of the political, economic and social demands of the new Colombian nation, of social justice, of equity, of opportunities for all, it is full freedom for blacks, whites, pink and with little lines.

Never the future of the People’s Party had been so certain, because we have never existed by the handouts of anyone, because we have built the reason for our being shoulder to shoulder with millions of Colombians: that is our history and our certainty.

The democratic and progressive aspirations of the peoples of Our America have just suffered a frontal blow in the Federative Republic of Brazil. In a first instance court decision, former president Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, who was foisted with corruption and money laundering, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

It is not hard to have all kinds of suspicions when looking at the fact that the worker and popular leader who has just been sentenced, is in turn the man that all the polls recognize as the virtual winner at the presidential elections scheduled for next year in our sister republic. He is also precisely the undisputed leader of a political and social movement that is adverse to the interests of big capital and its domination model in the continent.

The judicial decision affecting Lula da Silva appears to be the first step in preventing the return of the Workers' Party and its coalition, something that has occurred just a few months after the scandalous removal from office of President Dilma Rousseff. We cannot forget that a derisory vote in the Congress of her country ended up having more value than the votes of 54 million Brazilians who chose her in the polls. Today, the verdict of a single magistrate pretends to have more weight than the will of the majority of the people of Brazil.

It is evident that after the Organization of American States issued its Democratic Charter -through which even the United States government committed itself to condemn any coup d'état against any member government of the organization- the old practice of using military force to overthrow governments and crush peoples was replaced by one in which with a mask of legality it aims to destabilize and burry legitimate governments. Dilma's own case is added to the list that includes Honduras and Paraguay, as well as failed attempts against Presidents Chavez, Correa and Evo in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia respectively.

In the same way, it is a fact that both the overthrown from power and those who have been attacked, are leading alternative government programs that are opposed to the submission of their countries to the omnipotent will of multilateral organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank or the World Trade Organization. Practically from the day of their possession they all began to be the target of the angry attacks on part of the great press of their countries in alliance with transnational information chains, all linked to powerful economic corporations unconditionally defending the neoliberal policies that are plundering our peoples.

It is not a secret that the cancer of corruption, fundamentally linked to the great business of multinational corporations in countries where the instructions of the principal centers of world capital are rigorously followed -and which is manifested in the visible enrichment of officials linked to the highest government or to their families- does not produce the scandals which, on the other hand, are successively and coincidentally occurring in the case of people's governments who are accused and condemned by means of dubious procedures in which the refusal to appreciate the evidence in their defense is reiterated.

First, they are accused of being corrupt in order to be able to take them out of office, but if such a course of action is not enough, all sorts of financial, economic, commercial and political maneuvers are unleashed against them to declare them opprobrious dictatorships, against which the idea of ​​foreign military intervention "that will come to restore democracy" is proposed, as it is happening today against Bolivarian and Chavista Venezuela.

The mere fact that the first instance judge has decided to not deprive former President Lula of his freedom until the second instance judge's final decision, -for which he invokes the necessary prudence in order to avoid serious commotions in the country- is clear indicative of the political nature of his ruling and of his conscience on the serious repercussions that his decision can cause for the country, as expressed in his ruling.

As we are ready to enter into the political world of legality covered by the sum of guarantees promised by the regime with which we have agreed a Final Agreement, we cannot remain indifferent to what happens in Brazil with the cases of Dilma and Lula. In Colombia, where the ruling classes did not hesitate to plunge the country into a sea of ​​blood in order to prevent Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's access to the presidency [in 1948], and where today they make obstacles that seek to avoid the presidential aspiration of Gustavo Petro [a progressive polititian and presidential pre-candidate], we know that we will face all kinds of ambushes and low blows. In fact, the poisonous daily declarations on part of the Attorney General shows us how hard it will be for us to be able to make our proposals to the people.

We know that the people of Brazil will react with energy to the pretensions of the great economic and political powers. We hope that the sister country will be able to find democratic, peaceful and civilized formulas to avoid a senseless bloodshed. In the same way as we bet that the Colombian people will not allow their hopes of peace and democracy to be snatched away.

We are against exploitation, corruption, abuse and deceit. That's why we rely on your wisdom to face the great challenges awaiting us in this new path. Our America is one people, and we will win. For life, for nature, for justice, for a human and dignified future.

This week that comes to its end leaves a bitter taste in the ranks of the FARC-EP; we are close to celebrating 53 years of our foundation in Marquetalia, and all our members, commanders and base combatants, are sure that this will be the last commemoration in arms of the heroic uprising of Manuel Marulanda Vélez and his men and women in 1964.

By the 27th of this month [May], in each Transitional Zone and Point of Normalization, cultural political acts are programmed. Dances, choirs, theater, poetry, speeches, presentation of various musical groups; the nostalgia frames the preparations, it is well known that next year there will be no camps, no military life, no guerrilla coexistence, that tributes and memories will take place who knows where and under what conditions. They will not be done as guerrillas.

The FARC as a whole is in the process of the final laying down of weapons, based on a Final Agreement that was achieved after six years of intense debates in the Havana Peace Talks.No one can say without recurring to lies and slander that we have somehow failed on our commitments. Despite this, we feel the arrival of times of uncertainty. The National Government honors its word too slowly. The other powers hesitate or act suspiciously in relation to the agreed.

This week we were informed from Nariño [a southwestern region of Colombia], of the first cove of arms left at disposal of UN officials: 140 long weapons including .50 and M60 machine guns, MGL launchers and about 50 anti-aircraft mortars; the material was extracted from the La Variante rural settlement. The 3 tons of projectiles that accompanied the weapons will have to be counted one by one.

Explosive material was also destroyed. 1,500 bars of TNT, 150 timbas with 30 kilos of explosive each, 23 anti-aircraft rockets, 35 grenades of 80mm, 200 of 40mm and 40 hand guns. The sadness with which the guerrillas in charge of this task carried it out is understood, several cried as children. So much sacrifice, for so long, to get, gather and secure the valuable material that they now put into the hands of the UN.

Their pain was accompanied by indignation at times. The UN and the National Navy officials worked as if the FARC didn’t count at all. The operational and safety plans –jointly elaborated in the Local Mechanism of Monitoring and Verification- were disregarded by them, who unilaterally imposed their will.

The armament had been located in a house on the banks of the Patía river. The UN officials, foolishly, chose to set their heliport two kilometers away. The men and women of the FARC loaded the armament on their shoulders and took it there through a tremendous mud path. Despite their discontent, they had the order to deposit all the material in the hands of the United Nations. So they did, they knew that the seriousness of the FARC was in their hands.

Perhaps the most important part of it all was the direct verification, by the United Nations, of paramilitary presence in the area. With the name of New United Guerrillas of the Pacific, under the command of “David”, armed groups that were once strong in San Sebastian, San Juan, Pital and San Pedro, suddenly grew and took over the rivers that border with Ecuador in a clearly designed plan.

Their presence is public in the Chagüí, Rosario and Mejicano rivers, as well as in the rural settlements of Guayacana and Llorente, tying a corridor with the coast and also in Puerto Rico [town], at the border with Ecuador. It is normal to see them walk as civilians very close to the camps in the Transitional Zones, offering to pay 10 million [Colombian Pesos] to each guerrilla who begins working with them.The anxiety of the inhabitants of these rural areas is enormous.

The people who are part of these groups are on average about twenty years of age, well uniformed and carrying new rifles. They tell the peasants at the meetings that they appoint that they don’t have to worry, that they are not against the peace process or the exit of the FARC from the region, that they are not going to collect taxes. But they will stay there and take control of all activities. It is obvious that they are behind illicit crops and the drug business. Such a deployment is inexplicable without the collaboration of military authorities.

It is then understandable the FARC's deep concern with respect to the recent rulings of the Constitutional Court. On the one hand it throws to the floor the bodyguard scheme composed of ex-combatants, and on the other, it does the same with the “Fast Track” [as special legislative procedure that allows for the basic, urgent and necessary peace related laws to be passed in a timely and coherent manner], opening the doors to the modification of the Final Agreement by Congress. The constitutional attribution of the President of the Republic to conclude peace agreements has been shattered; the seriousness of the Colombian State is in question before the world.

Out of 53 years of the Colombian conflict, more than 30 were spent in peace talks. The failed processes left bitter experiences to the country. Finally, we now achieve the most perfect agreement possible, with accompaniment and guarantee by the international community, with an overwhelming endorsement by the Congress of the Republic and endorsed by the Constitutional Court. For the first time in more than half a century, peace appears on the horizon.

There is a Conflict Termination Agreement, deposited in Switzerland and celebrated in five continents. The existence of detractors [of the peace agreement] in the country does not belittle the official character of the formal commitment between the Colombian State and the FARC-EP, recognized even by the United Nations Security Council, a body involved in its implementation. The FARC-EP remains true to its word. The State cannot fail without infamy.

An authentic week of passion comes to an end, in which the FARC seems like the Christ that is to be crucified. We will not take that place, we defend peace and truth, and the Colombian people will accompany us. We await your deeds, Mr. President, honor your word. We will not fail on Colombia.

On April 26, 1937 during the Spanish civil war, the town of Gernika, a republican stronghold that maintained strong resistance against the fascist regime of Francisco Franco, received a severe bombing attack perpetrated by the Spanish nationalist government and its allies: Nazi Germany ruled by Adolf Hitler and Fascist Italy ruled by Benito Mussolini.

The bombing was carried out by air forces of the mentioned regimes who indiscriminately bombed the entire town causing a still unknown number of deaths. This event was also portrayed in a painting made by Pablo Picasso named Gernika.

In reference to this tragic story in 2005 the Gernika awards for Peace and Reconciliation were established by diverse organizations and local authorities in order to make public the appreciation of the contribution to the Peace Building and promoting reconciliation, Human Rights and Social Justice

The Commander-in-chief of the FARC-EP received the Gernika Peace and Reconciliation award on its 2017 edition which is also the 80th anniversary of the bombardment to Gernika. The President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos also received this award. The following is the speech given by Timoleón Jiménez:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The horror of the bombing of Gernika eighty years ago has become a universal chant of the condemnation of war and the destruction it entails.

Today, this mournful event is commemorated with a spirit of peace and reconciliation, of which the granting of this award in 2012 to the former German president, Roman Herzog is a particular example, for it was him who twenty years ago, in the exercise of his position, recognized the responsibility of his country in the tragedy occurred in 1937.

Today, together with the dedicated photographer and journalist Gervasio Sánchez, the President of Colombia, through his delegate: the High Commissioner for Peace Sergio Jaramillo, and I, who also had to appoint a representative: the Spanish jurist Enrique Santiago , since the authorities of my country did not give me the passport to personally be there, as I wished, in order to receive the prestigious Peace and Reconciliation Award in its 2017 version, for having managed to reach the signing of the agreement that has put an end to the armed conflict that has affected our country for more than half a century.

The jury composed of representatives of the Gernika-Lumo City Council, the first mayor of the German city of Pforzheim, the Gernika Gogoratuz Foundation, the House of Culture, and the Peace Museum, considered my name based on my collaboration to the signing of Peace in order to continue my activity by political means.

I must say, first of all, that I receive this award, not in a personal capacity, but in recognition of our organization: the REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA – PEOPLE’S ARMY, FARC-EP, and the Colombian people who for decades called out and worked for the political solution of the conflict in our country.

I dare to say that the FARC-EP did much more than collaborate in the signing of peace, insofar as the peaceful, civilized and dialogued termination of the internal confrontation of our country was a banner of struggle of our organization from the very beginning of our uprising. Almost twenty years had to elapse before the Colombian State agreed to initiate for the first time some kind of conversation aimed at peace, and then to spend more than thirty years of frustrated processes with different governments -in the midst of a serious conflagration- to finally reach the dream of a final agreement.

A Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace, whose very terms show the democratic, economic and social reality of Colombia, which in no way coincides with the image that, from power, is transmitted to the exterior. A Comprehensive Rural Reform that seeks to reduce the exaggerated concentration of land ownership of a privileged sector, while taking the population out of the backwardness and poverty of the country-side through the State's commitment to provide roads, electricity, housing, health, education and opportunities for progress through development plans.

A chapter on political participation that opens for the first time the floodgates of democracy to organizations, parties and political and social movements of opposition with full guarantees to the right of living, integrity and freedom of its members; the commitment is to end political violence forever, also to end with paramilitarism and crime as mechanisms of national, regional or local domination;an obligation that the Colombian State promises to take seriously, amid the wave of murders and threats against social and popular leaders in various regions of the country.

The agreement also contemplates a treatment other than that of war and repression to peasants that grow coca, poppy or marijuana, and who are forced to resort to this illegal activity by necessity in order to support their families in the most remote regions of the country. There will be illicit crop substitution programs with full State support for families engaged in such activity, in order to enable them to produce food in decent conditions. In this way the chain of drug trafficking will be broken by its weakest link, the hundreds of thousands of peasants who dont count with any possibility of progress.

The FARC will effectively move from being a movement in arms to a political party in legality, which will have words as its only weapon. In fact, the Bilateral and Final Cease of Fire and of Hostilities is being fulfilled while we are deposing our weapons, which will remain in the hands of the United Nations for its transformation into three historical monuments, one at the headquarters of the UN, another in Havana and a third in Bogotá. We have faithfully fulfilled each of our commitments and we expect from the national government its commitment with the agreed, without pretexts and delays as it has unfortunately been occurring in several cases.

We are here to talk about peace and reconciliation, the enforced purpose in our country to leave behind war in a definite manner and jointly undertake the building of a new nation, where hatreds and retaliations have no place. It was with that spirit that we started the talks and after five years of discussions we signed the Final Agreement. We consider that, just as Vizcaya did, it is urgent for the eyes of the world to be fixed in Colombia, not only to guarantee compliance with the agreement, but also to warn about the pernicious influences and undertakings of far right political sectors that against all rationality and justice, openly oppose the Havana Accords, and promise to revoke them if they win next year's elections. That cannot be allowed.

More than eight million Colombians were affected by the long confrontation, the overwhelming majority were victims of violent dispossession of their rural properties in favor of a disastrous agroindustry and agro-fuel business project. Death and injury, forced disappearance, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and many other forms of victimization can never be repeated. Therefore, the agreement contemplates a Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, which honors victims and their rights in the most complete way possible, based on the right that they and all Colombians have to know the truth of what happened and receive satisfactions.

Thank you Gernika, thanks to the Basque country, thank you Spain. It is beautiful to receive this congratulations embrace from the other side of the Atlantic, from that Europe that has suffered the war and its horrors in their own flesh. Gabriela Mistral already sang it in her poem to the tree of Gernika, “The wounded, the thrown, and those who died halfway out, we all return, all, to the tree, to the arena”. Here we are, reconciled, dreaming of a world ruled by peace and love rather than by greed and intolerance.

I have just learned, with surprise, the tweet of the Senate’s President, Mauricio Lizcano, in which he shares a statement on the announced admission of members of the FARC-EP and ELN to the elliptical hall of the National Congress on occasion of the National Peace Congress.

According to the text that was published, both Senator Mauricio Lizcano, in his capacity as President of the Upper House, and Representative Miguel Ángel Pinto, in exercise of his function as President of the Lower House, don’t authorize the entry of members of the FARC and ELN to the Elliptical Hall or to any other venue of the Congress of the Republic.

When referring specifically to Iván Márquez [of the FARC-EP], who had been invited to the closing of the event, the statement argues that only members of Voices of Peace* can enter the venue, and that the head of the Peace Delegation of the FARC cannot do so until the decommissioning of weapons, and if they committed crimes against humanity, until peace courts authorize it.

On its part, according to the aforementioned statement, the ELN representative, Pablo Beltran, cannot do so because they are an organization outside the law.

A little less than a month ago, the two respectable congressmen went to the city of Cartagena on the occasion of the so-called peace conclave. There, in the auditorium of the Bolívar Governorship and in the office of the Governor, they took part in a meeting with the members of the CSIVI [Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission], to which Ivan Márquez, Jesus Santrich and Victoria Sandino [FARC-EP delegates] are part of, and in which in addition to the government´s representatives in that instance, Timoleón Jiménez, Commander-in-Chief of the FARC-EP and the President of the Republic, Juan Manuel Santos, accompanied by several of his ministers, actively participated.

In the speeches of the leaders of the political parties committed to the peace process and its implementation in Congress -which were followed by the speech of Senator Lizcano- all of them expressed their unreserved support for the Havana Agreements, they expressed their explicit intention to work for its implementation and assume its political defense towards the future.

The FARC not only signed the Habana Agreements, but we have given reliable evidence before the country of our willingness to faithfully comply them. We don’t understand, how at this point, negative positions still prevail in the higher spheres of legislative power, being the same Congress that has passed successive legislative acts that recognize our political condition and legitimize our participation in the political life of our country.

I should not, but I cannot refrain from mentioning, the presence in the Congress of the Republic of three prominent paramilitary leaders –in the times of the government administration of today’s Senator, Alvaro Uribe- with the approval of the President and the leadership of the Congress of the Republic. Something very strange happens in Colombia if Iván Márquez cannot make presence in the closing act of the National Peace Congress.

The denial of the momentary presence of Iván Márquez in the Congress of the Republic –the same Congress that overwhelmingly endorsed the agreed in Havana after its signature in the Colón Theatre- does not cease to seem as a suggestive concession in favor of the far right sectors that are opposed to reconciliation and peaceful democratic coexistence among Colombians. No one should endorse to those who persist in the indefinite prolongation of the armed conflict

Peace in Colombia cannot be stopped by anyone.

Havana, April 28, 2017.

*Voices of Peace, in spanish Voces de Paz, is a group of 6 spokespersons of the Peace Agreement to Congress mandated by the Peace Agreement signed between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP, learn more here

Is he aware that the way in which he presents his statements fuels the irrational hatred of sectors willing to drown the country in another sea of blood?

At the end of March, the FARC-EP´s Leadership Command in the Transitional Zone "Amaury Rodríguez" of Pondores at the municipality of Fonseca in Guajira sent a letter to the 15 mayors of that department with the purpose of proposing the realization of some joint actions framed in the idea of working for the implementation of the Havana Agreements.

The letter, elaborated with the best spirit of uniting efforts for what is derived from the implementation of the Peace Agreement ended with the respectful invitation to a meeting in the Transitional Zone on April 6 or on a date convenient to the recipients, given that the department of La Guajira -within the criteria contained in the PDET*- is one of the prioritized territories.

For the sake of discussion we could accept that it was a concise document, which perhaps required a broader and cordial explanation on the raised issues. We understand that the responsibilities of local officials involve very strict agendas, and that their variation due to sudden invitations can give rise to difficulties in their patriotic function.

But another thing is the dimension that some officials and sectors from the local and national press decided to attribute to it, who preferred to interpret the letter as an outburst and unnecessary pressure, arguing that the FARC has not yet disarmed. Examples of this are the statements given by the Governor of La Guajira, Wilder Guerra Curvelo.

To him, this is an inadmissible, illegitimate and tremendously arbitrary action, because in his opinion the mayors are called to be held accountable, as in the worst days of armed conflict. There were similar expressions on part of some political sectors that are characterized by their sick hatred to the materialization of the Havana Agreements.

Among all the declarations that came up, I would like to point out those pronounced by Dr. Sergio Jaramillo, the High Commissioner for Peace due their significance and because of the repetitive nature of his attitude:

"... this can be considered as a violation of the ceasefire because the FARC have not finished disarming and it is a pressure on society, it is a disturbance of the order in the region and the agreement clearly states its prohibition"

"Anyone can feel [the invitation to the meeting] as a form of pressure and the agreement says that any pressure on society or on authorities is a violation to the ceasefire."

"... if the FARC wants to do politics, if they want to dialogue in this way with the institutions, they must accelerate the process of decommissioning of weapons because they have not finished their disarming"

The High Commissioner for Peace knows the Agreements perfectly because from the beginning of the talks up until the final signing he remained at the Negotiation Table, expressing his points of view and those of the National Government. His signature appears in each of the formal copies. In addition he has assumed –though not always with the same consistency- the rigorous exercise of exposing and interpreting the peace agreements.

He is well aware that the Transitional Zones and Points for Normalization were not conceived -and this was contemplated in the Bilateral Ceasefire Agreements and Protocols- as ghettos in which the FARC guerrillas group in their transit to civilian life in which they are supposed to remain completely isolated from society and without any contact with the outside world.

That is why the construction of reception areas within these Transitional Zones was agreed, where any person or official could go and talk to the FARC in the spirit of the agreements or even for personal reasons, as is the case with the relatives and friends of the guerrillas. That is why these reception areas were included as common areas whose termination [in terms of their construction] was privileged in the Cartagena conclave*.

He also knows -because he was one of its promoters- that in the point on Comprehensive Rural Reform of the Peace Agreements, the Development Programs with Territorial Approach (PDET) were agreed, which are to cover the totality of rural areas of the country, in which the most helpless and urgent areas are to be prioritized in terms of the implementation with greater speed and resources from the national plans that are to be created under the Agreement.

The agreement says that in order to meet its objectives "it is necessary to elaborate in each participatory area a plan of action for regional transformation, including all levels of territorial organization, agreed with local authorities and communities." Therefore, the unhelpful tantrum of Dr. Jaramillo is incomprehensible.

I am sure that our colleagues at the “Amaury Rodríguez” Transitional Point of Normalization of Pondores acted in the spirit of the agreed, and were naturally encouraged by the urgent need to make the Agreements known to local officials, something which clearly the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace does not do.

A few days ago, the Fifth Monthly Report of the Monitoring and Verification Mechanism was released, which reports the country's compliance with the Agreement by the parties and possible violations of the ceasefire during the period from March 7 to April 7. This organism -authorized by the Agreements- does not think the same as the High Commissioner.

It would be convenient for this official to personally take care of and look out for the repeated non-compliance on part of the State, which has been officially indicated by the only mechanism legitimized to do this, instead of going out making frequent shows in open violation of the agreement with the high government on the way and mechanisms to address the differences that present themselves during the implementation.

From what he expressed not only in this occasion but also on similar ones, it seems that his only desire lies in the complete decommissioning of weapons of the FARC, with indifference regarding the respect to other commitments agreed upon. If that is his concern, he should be satisfied with the official report of the MM&V [Monitoring and Verification Mechanism], which is very clear with regard to our strict compliance.

On social networks there is currently a video being show in which a shameless person longs for the times of Carlos Castaño [a paramilitary leader] and openly announces the beginning of an urban war that aims to exterminate Colombians that are committed to the Peace Agreements, including even the President of the Republic in these threats without the least reluctance and in a manifestation of the fascist delirium of the ultra-right.

It’s reasonable to wonder if the High Commissioner for Peace is aware of the way in which he with his irresponsible declarations contribute to incite and nourish the irrational hatred of sectors willing to drown the country in another interminable sea of blood, just when victimized, decent, democratic, and dignified Colombia insists on forever burying such intolerant dementia.

La Havana, April 12, 2017

*PDET: “Development Programs with Territorial Approach”, this is contained in the Peace Agreements signed by the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP and their objective is to provide the implementation of a series of reforms, programs and public policies to the most affected regions of the armed conflict in order to provide the economic, social and living conditions to these regions that contribute to guarantee the rights of its inhabitants and the socio-economic conditions for their development.

*Cartagena conclave: On the 25th and 26th of March of this year, 100 days after the beginning of the implementation of the Peace Agreements, FARC-EP and Colombian Government met in the city of Cartagena to make a balance of what has been of the implementation of the agreements and came to a series of mutual agreements for its further implementation highlighting the need for the Government to put its part in finishing with the construction of Transitional Local Zones and Points for Normalization where FARC-EP troops are currently grouped.

As if it was an April fools´ joke, the National Government sanctioned a new tax reform last December 28, after an intense controversy, leaving in the air the feeling that none, not even the Ministry of Finance that had presented it, was fully satisfied with it. The criticisms sprang from all sectors, although in the end the majority seemed to conclude that it was a necessary evil, to which we must be resigned to in any chase. Another toad that the country will have to swallow[1].

The worst about it is the wicked political advantage that has been sought from it, to turn against the ongoing peace process in general and against the FARC-EP in particular. In both cases based on the false and stubborn argument that there was a tacit agreement between the National Government and us in order to have it approved. Nothing further from the truth. The FARC will never consent to the slightest assault on the pocket of the Colombian people.

It is not true that the tax collection derived from the approved tax reform is intended to meet the required amount of resources needed to satisfy the fiscal requirements that arose from the Havana Agreements. Since the approval of the General Budget of the Nation for 2017, it was clear that the National Government lacked the will to allocate new resources for it, peace remained without the necessary funds and the government knew it.

The real motivation for the tax reform was due to other priorities, the huge fiscal deficit caused by the fall in the price of raw materials and the increase in the service of the public debt; a perverse instrument of State financing instituted in our country by the imposition of large transnational capital. Taxes on the bulk of the population increased due to demands from the IMF and the OECD, multilateral credit institutions, which even threatened to lower the rating of the Colombian debt on the international credit market.

This situation is not new to the country's economy and, moreover, not only victimizes Colombia, but also all dependent countries, governed by an elite that has been bound for more than three decades to the neoliberal model of economy. According to this, the least important thing in any nation is social spending, which must be reduced to the maximum in order to guarantee the profit share of the large financial and extractive capital which is urges its self reproduction.

The most recent tax reform of President Santos, reproduces in new circumstances the same demand made and satisfied by the administrations of Álvaro Uribe, Andres Pastrana, Ernesto Samper and César Gaviria [former presidents], and adds to the successive and incessant privatizations of public entities and services; the repeated financial, customs and labor deregulation, and the hundreds of thousands of layoffs decreed in the last decades, which point to the abolition of State intervention in social welfare, condemning poverty and misery on to millions of human beings who have to try and survive however they can in addition to paying more taxes.

That is why the declarations of the far-right result to be clownish [represented in former presidents Alvaro Uribe and Andres Pastrana], according to which they always opposed the new tax increase. The deepening of the neoliberal model has been a result of this administration and all the government administrations that preceded it, which among other things also conferred an excessive and growing slice of the national budget on war, the so-called national defense, the apparatus of repression whose only real role has been of persecution, crime, imprisonment and terror against that immense amount of Colombians moved by nonconformity and who protest against the permanent plundering of the country and its labor.

So now they come like hypocrites pretending to wash their faces and show themselves as the only ones who can save Colombia from the present disaster they themselves have woven. The same faces of Santos and Cárdenas, with the same team of technicians trained in the inhuman Chicago school theories, who have been alternating in the management of the national economy in all the past government administrations, with indecent submission to the international lending institutions , who first impose their terms and then applaud to demand more.

Not even in the so-called Budget for Peace of 2017, despite the imminent Final Agreement with the FARC, a minimal reduction of military spending was contemplated, publicly unveiling their intention to maintain the apparatus of subjugation. On the contrary, with Colombian taxpayers' money, it is planned to send Colombian troops to participate in conflicts abroad that will only aggravate the situation of the country. Cooperation with NATO is part of the same neoliberal package signed by Álvaro Uribe with the seven gringo bases in Colombia.

In the context of such outlook, only the light of the Colombian people is left, the Havana Agreements if implemented and fulfilled as signed, will allow and guarantee the massive, active and transforming presence of millions of Colombians in the political life of the country. For the first time, we Colombians have gained a legitimate tool, unavoidable from the legal point of view, recognized and applauded by the international community, which will allow us to oppose the elites and their model head-on, and to open the way for a new democratic and just country.

That is why it it’s important to defend the agreed in Havana starting from now, to demand its immediate implementation and strict compliance. It will not be Santos or his successors, or even his inspirers in the international community who will take charge of materializing the agreed in the Definitive Accord. It is the Colombian people, organized, conscious and mobilized by the great changes that will be in charge of achieving it. That is what the oligarchy of our country fears, so they attack and try to ignore the agreed. That is why they lie without shame.

It is also surprising that for some left winged sectors there is insistence on pointing out to the FARC as allies of Juan Manuel Santos in his lagging, neoliberal and repressive policies, even presenting us as accomplices of the Santista tax reform. In doing so, perhaps without perceiving it, they are locating themselves on the same side of the far-right of Uribe and end up serving their purposes to delegitimize the Havana Agreements in order to repel them in the future. The unity of the Colombian people against the model and its representatives is a priority that cannot be ignored under any pretext.

We all have to save Colombia, let's go for that.

Havana, January 4, 2017

[1]Translators note: The expression of “swallowing toads” in Colombia means something like: what a person or group of people have to imperatively go through or withstand in an unpleasant situation. It is mostly used when referring to the things that society or political sectors have to withstand due to the political action and/or decisions of the other.

No other man in history has ever battled so much for the interests of mankind. Until the last moments of his life, Fidel serenely warned of the dangers that beset everyone on account of the greed of big capital.

Undisputed Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban revolution and one of the most important figures of the planet, he assumed his role with singular modesty, rejecting the minimum cult of personality towards him on the part of the peoples that loved him.

All the revolutionaries and democrats in the world feel deeply impacted. The greatest, the most far-reaching in vision, the inspirer of our dreams has departed. His ideas will acquire more force than ever before.

The unfortunate presence of Kfir planes on the day of the signing of the Final Havana Agreement has already been widely discussed and commented.

There are many who wonder to what obeyed the threatening apperance of warplanes on the scenario at the moment the comandante of the FARC-EP was finishing his speech.

In general we may conclude that there was a consensus on the rejection of such an event. Inopportune, impertinent, and even highly dangerous. On the stage, among others, were the Secretary General of the UN, the United States Secretary of State of America, fifteen presidents in office and the list continues with former presidents and others.

There are even rumours about possible diplomatic complaints against the government of Colombia. Events of this nature are supremely serious, solemnity being so high that a joke of such bad taste does not admit even be thought of. There were shocked foreign journalists who even suggested the possibility of a coup. And the idea of a dirty betrayal crossed many minds.

Why did President Santos give green light to such absurdity, amid the official ceremony that sealed the end of armed conflict after fifty-two years of war? A few minutes before the choir of children and adults were to give free rein to the portentous interpretation of Ode to Joy, and his later cry for no more war in Colombia?

We don´t expect a public explanation about it, perhaps nor even a private one. As the death of our commander Alfonso Cano, in the middle of the first exchanges that led to the successful conclusion of this process, it is just one of the many provocations we had to face, with great serenity and good judgment along these years and until the last moment.

However, we would wish to refer to the treatment that some media commentators conferred to the fact. In particular the note prepared about it in the newspaper El Tiempo and the one published by the portal Las 2 Orillas on the web. The two notes agree that it was a last moment show of force, with which the State wanted to show us its final victory.

We have not enough time to read all the columns of the great press, but enough is to know the content of the aforementioned, to imagine how many more columns have been developed and published on the same tone. In fact, the unanimous decision of the editors of the mainstream media was to present the surprised face of Timochenko in the foreground, to talk about his fear.

His fear of the airpower of the Colombian Army, his fear of the engine noise and bombs, his panic for an unexpected and instant death. And after this, they let the door open to the subsequent speculation. The FARC were taken defeated to the Negotiating Table, defeated at the point of bombs. Is there any more palpable evidence of this than the photograph displayed?

It’s difficult to find a more appropriate adjective other than diabolical to describe the way the issue is addressed by the media in question. We're sure that none of those who write such notes has ever heard the sound of a combat, besides the ones on a film, a documentary or a news video produced at a safe distance.

Anyone who knows the classic video of French journalists made in the Marquetalia and Riochiquito times, would know that since then, aircrafts have been used to bomb and strafe camps, guerrilla units and even civilians. If that had been the proper procedure to defeat us, war would not have lasted for half a century.

Something smells rotten in such notes. As El Tiempo highlights the bombs thanks to which Raul Reyes, Jorge Briceño and Alfonso Cano were killed, the note published by Las 2 Orillas expands on a FARC being coward and shaking, signing the Final Agreement imposed by the national government by way of summons. The same array of long years of war.

It’s not worth answering to the authors of such absurdities. At the end of the day they are simple scribes expressing the resentment of certain circles of power absolutely offended by what has been achieved by the FARC. We feel that the great majority of the country joins us in this victory of the Colombian people: we have won peace and how much this hurts some people.

They should remember Baron von Clausewitz, and his fundamental text on politics and war. This is nothing but the continuation of the first by other means. And more than the annihilation of the contender, victory consists in imposing one's will on the opponent. If something is perfectly clear in the Havana Agreements, it is that there were no winners or losers.

FARC will continue making politics, openly and legally, without weapons, carrying our message of renovation and change throughout the country. With full guarantees from the State. We are sorry but we exit war through the front door, with official recognition of the UN, the European Union, the United States and virtually every country in the world.

That can not be denied not even by our staunchest detractors, rather shocked and teary while watching the demonstrations and omens of success given to us by the whole of the international community, the government of Colombia, and especially the sea of personalities and social, political, artistic and cultural organizations that have applauded the Final Agreement.

Some serious mental disturbance must be suffering those inspirors of the articles in question. Those who clap their hands to the alleged fear that the Kfir gave Timochenko and his people in Cartagena on September 26, reveals rather how hugely misplaced military demonstrations of brute force and terror are today in Colombia and the continent.

We could write an essay about the disproportionate and immoral character of the air war against guerrillas. Something that everyone assisting the ceremony of September 26 perceived immediately.

But it’s not worth stirring things up with that now. We signed the end of the conflict and go for reconciliation, for forgiveness, for a Colombia without hatred, in peace and social justice.